The Fall of the House of Usher

Mike Flanagan is back on Netflix, with a new horror gem, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's works.

Oct 12, 2023

Mike Flanagan is back, with a new horror gem. This time, the inspiration for the US filmmaker can be found in Edgar Allan Poe’s works, from the titular The Fall of the House of Usher to The Raven and other stories.
This miniseries, however, is not an adaptation of Poe’s work but rather brings elements of the legendary US author to a different setting and the cut-throat world of multinational Big Pharma.

(Left to Right) Paola Nuñez as Dr. Alessandra Ruiz, T'Nia Miller as Victorine LaFourcade, Kyliegh Curran as Lenore Usher, Crystal Balint as Morella Usher, Henry Thomas as Frederick Usher, Bruce Greenwood as Roderick Usher, Samantha Sloyan as Tamerlane Usher, Matt Biedel as Bill-T Wilson in episode 101 of The Fall of the House of Usher. Cr. Eike Schroter/Netflix © 2023

(Left to Right) Sauriyan Sapkota as Prospero Usher, Kate Siegel as Camille L'Espanaye, Rahul Kohli as Napoleon Usher, Matt Biedel as Bill-T Wilson, Samantha Sloyan as Tamerlane Usher, Mark Hamill as Arthur Pym in episode 101 of The Fall of the House of Usher. Cr. Eike Schroter/Netflix © 2023

Meet the Ushers, a family so toxic to put the Roys from Succession to shame, making the latter family look like a perfect and harmonious one. The family’s patriarch, Roderick, and his sister, Madeline, played by Bruce Greenwood and Mary McDonnell lead the family empire. The following generation includes a collection of characters absolutely rotten, from the playboy Napoleon Usher, played by frequent Flanagan’s collaborator Rahul Kohli, to the party-goer Prospero Usher, media-gossip queen Camille L’ Espanaye.
The other members of the Usher second-generation are the other frequent Flanagan collaborator T’ Nia Miller as Victorine LaFourcade, working on horrific experiments with chimps as test subjects, the deluded lifestyle businesswoman Tamerlane Usher (played by yet another collaborator of Flanagan, Samantha Floyan) and finally, the insecure successor Frederick Usher. Similarly to Logan Roy, the Usher patriarch loves nothing more than seeing his children in a constant and perennial competition for his love and approval, a competition filled with hate and contempt.
Then there is Lenore Usher, played by Kyliegh Curran (previously seen as Abra in Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep, King’s sequel to The Shining) the only good Usher, and on the opposite side of the moral spectrum there is Mark Hamill as Arthur Pym, also known as “The Pym Reaper”. Hamill plays an extremely dark part, an enforcer and keeper of secrets, who is ready to do anything to keep the family in power.
The only one to stand against the Ushers is C.Auguste Dupin, the Assistant United States Attorney, who is not tricked by the Ushers’ facade. As Dupin sits down with Roderick Usher in the first episode, all the Usher children are dead.
Dupin aside, the centre stage is taken by Verna, played by Carla Gugino, a figure from their past intent on a vendetta against the whole family.

Get ready for a gothic, dark Flanagan gem, full of the jump scares that are characteristics of the director’s style, mystery, gore, and secrets of the past.
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The Fall of the House of Usher is available to stream on Netflix from today.

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